an expedient way to collect rain water if you have gutters.. knock the end cap off if you have end gable roof, or make a short connector for you down spout with a hip roof... I use a 33gal plastic trash can... let the early rain get a chance to clean off the roof before placing the can... I fill a similar trash can in my shower stall with tap water... a .1 micron Sawyer 5gal bucket filter and pool shock complete my water system... I store about 17gal in containers plus a case or so of bottled water year round

The rule of thumb that I've always heard is to let the rain fall a good 15 minutes before collecting rainwater. 15 minutes allows the rain to clear the dust out of the air and pound contaminates off your roof and onto the ground.

Is rain water collected during a hurricane (or on either side of the main part of one) salty? With the high winds, I can imagine that sea water might get mixed up with water coming down form the clouds. I would think it might be salty, but I've never been in a hurricane to check it out. If rain is fresh water during a hurricane, your rain collection barrels should fill up in seconds!

haertig...never tasted it either... I use rain water only as a back up to flush toilet... also to shower if necessary... I have a pretty good filter system if needed, but store about 20gal and a couple of flats of water...we did not loose city water during the 2004/2005 outages, but has happened in the past

Yes, and if rainwater is to be regularly harvested, automatic devices are available or can be made to divert the initial roof run off to waste before sending the subsequent cleaner water to a tank or drum.
The usual technique is that the first flow of water fills a bucket or small drum, and that the weight of this vessel when full operates a pivot and thereby diverts subsequent flow into the tank.
The small vessel should preferably have a very small hole in it so that it will slowly empty and be available for the next rainfall.

We made our own DIY Berkey water filter system to use on our property up north. Much cheaper and the filters can be found on Amazon.com for about $100.00

There are videos on YouTube on how to make a DIY filtration system with a couple of 5 gallon buckets. I still would not trust the store bought nor the DIY filtration system to remove chemical contaminants though.

You can get other brands filter elements for less.


I have two Tulip siphon water filters as emergency water filter system; which does not need any DIY'ing. Just toss it in a container higher up, use the little pump to prime it and then let it flow down to a container placed lower. They do come with an o-ring, so you can convert them in a stacked bucket system.


Mine favorite system is the Quechua MSH system, which consists of:
- a black fabric water bag for dirty water collection when used for filtering, but also comes with a shower attachment to use as a solar shower.
- Water filter and hoses (uses the katadyn fiberglass pleated filter with carbon)
- A plastic clean water bag, but also comes with hose/tap attachment to use as a tap.

Everything can be joined by quick disconnects and really easy to use, but also really inexpensive. They discontinued it a few years ago...

the Sawyer bucket systems are extremely lightweight... filter uses hemo dialysis technology to produce the filter media, which can be back flushed with included syringe... .1 and .02 micron filter size... comes with a spade bit to cut the hole in the 5 gal bucket...

we save rain water for the house plants.i have three 30 gallon drums in the basement that could be used if I filtered it.
the 55 gallon drum under the down spout has wire mesh to keep out big stuff and some goldfish eat the bugs.
water is not a problem here as a old historical spring that run all year long is at the end of our street.yes I would filter that for drinking water but the old timers around here don't.

I'm surprised that there isn't a run on empty water containers before an event.